Steam Machine Turns Poop into Clean Drinking Water

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Bill Gates wants to turn your poop into clean drinking water, and
he's got just the machine to do it.

In a recent blog post and video, the billionaire entrepreneur and
philanthropist showed off what he called an "ingenious machine,"
a steam-powered sewage processor that burns up solid waste and
creates both potable water and electricity.

Dubbed the "Omniprocessor," the machine was designed and built by
the Washington-based engineering firm Janicki Bioenergy, which is
now receiving funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
to further develop the technology. Gates believes the machine can
help solve one of the developing world's biggest problems —
access to clean water. [ Top
10 Craziest Environmental Ideas ]

At least 2 billion people the world over relieve themselves in
bathroom facilities that aren’t properly drained, according to
Gates, who also noted that many others don't have access to
bathrooms at all and must defecate out in the open. All of this
improperly processed waste contaminates the drinking water of
millions of people in communities around the globe. This results
in disease that kills about 700,000 children every year, and
stunts the physical and mental development of many more,
Gates wrote in his blog post.

But the solution to this devastating problem isn't to build more
toilets. Western-style sewer lines and sewage treatment plantsare
not feasible options in most poor countries, according to Gates.
But, a sewage treatment machine like the Omniprocessor may work
in such places, he said.

Measuring about 75 feet (23 meters) long
and 26 feet (8 m) across, this small processing plant can
handle about 14 tons of waste every day. That means it's large
enough to continually process sewage from a community of about
100,000 people, according to the Gates Foundation.

The machine is loaded up with sewer sludge, which travels up a
conveyor belt and is fed into large tubes known as dryers. The
dryers boil the sludge, removing all the liquid and capturing it
as water vapor, which is then heavily processed, making it
suitable to drink.

The solid waste is dumped into an incinerator, which burns up the
rest of the waste, creating a good deal of heat. This heat, in
turn, is funneled through a
steam engine, which produces high-temperature steam that
fuels a generator. The generator creates electricity that is used
to power the machine. There's even a little extra electricity
left over that can be transferred into the power grid.

This self-sustaining machine will soon be launched in a pilot
project in Dakar, Senegal, where Janicki engineers will study the
Omniprocessor's operation in a real-world setting. Eventually
Omniprocessors will be sold to local entrepreneurs who will
purchase the machine for about $1.5 million, according to a
report by Wired. In addition to testing out different
locations for the machine and communicating with local community
members about how it works, the Janicki team's trial run in
Senegal will also test out a system of sensors and webcams that
will let engineers in the United States control the machine
remotely.

"It might be many years before the processor is being used
widely," Gates wrote in his blog post. "But I was really
impressed with Janicki’s engineering. And I’m excited about the
business model. The processor wouldn’t just keep human waste out
of the drinking water; it would turn waste into a commodity with
real value in the marketplace. It’s the ultimate example of that
old expression: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure."